How does one make a world-class city? By image management! And dislocating the poor. Between 1995 and the Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi in 2010, the PIL went from being used for the poor, to against the poor. The building of malls and flyovers were prioritized over core municipal concerns: sanitation, health and education. How did this happen? By the judiciary turning into the executive and issuing orders. This episode of The Longest Constitution looks at slum eviction as well as how contempt of court has widened progressively over the years, severely crippling the freedom of expression.

On Sahara and contempt of court:

1. Bhatia, Gautam, 2016, Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution, (New Delhi: OUP). Chapter 9.

2. https://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/book/story/book-review-sahara-the-untold-story-42920-2013-12-05

3. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/158887669/

Slum eviction:

1. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/842898/

2. Ghertner, Ashner, T., 2015, Rule by Aesthetics: World-Class CIty Making in Delhi (Oxford University Press).

3. Bhuwania, Anuj, 2016, Courting the People: Public Interest Litigation in Post-Emergency India, (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press).

Judicial independence:

1. Sengupta, Arghya and Ritwika Sharma, 2018, Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of India: Transparency, Accountability and Independence (Delhi: OUP)

2. Krishna, Justice B. N (retd.) 2016, “Judicial Independence”, in Choudhry, Sujit (et al), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, (OUP: New Delhi).

3. https://thewire.in/law/aadhaar-verdict-money-bill-rajya-sabha

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